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NEWSLETTER

Dark Inside | Jeyn Roberts | Reviewed by Niina

Wednesday, 9 April 2014

“They knew this—survival came at a price. Over the past few weeks they’d all survived a Bagger attack. Or two. Or three. They knew the consequences. Not everyone got out alive. They’d seen loved ones die. Even worse, some had watched the people they cared about turn on them. But as long as they stuck together in a group, they were still human. As long as they were human they were still alive.” - Jeyn Roberts, Dark Inside

A series of earthquakes
rock the world and for reasons unknown people start to turn on
each other. People start moving in packs killing and destroying
everything on their way. The people who're not affected by the
earthquakes have to start hiding and running from people who once
were their friends, neighbors and family members. In this new
terrifying world four teenagers, Mason, Aries, Clementine and Michael have to do their best to survive.

I started reading Dark
Inside by Jeyn Roberts thinking it was going to be a zombie novel. Not that it's that
different, it's an apocalyptic novel about people trying to kill
other people. The difference is that the monsters in this book aren't
dead, they're alive but gone crazy. If you've read a few of my
previous reviews you probably know that I'm a big fan of apocalyptic
stories. They're alway fast-paced, action filled and I find the
concept of people surviving and dealing with extreme conditions
interesting. Dark Inside does live up to those things. It's
fast-paced, action filled and tells the story about people trying to survive in a world gone mad. So yes, this novel was a fun read
according to me. I also enjoyed the slightly unique concept of living
people turning to crazy murderers.

Even if I really enjoyed
reading Dark Inside there was one thing that really bothered me. I
had a pretty hard time keeping the characters apart. The chapters in
this novel are narrated by different characters, so the story line
jumps between the four main characters. If the concept of jumping
between different narrators is going to work you need to have unique characters that are very different from
each other. I had a hard time remembering which one of the characters
I was reading about at the moment (that the two main characters
Michael and Mason have pretty similar names is also bit of an issue).
This wouldn't have been a problem if the characters would've been a
bit more unique and had a bit more depth to them so I go to know them better.

Over all this is a fun,
fast an enjoyable read and I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick up the sequel. But the novel does lack in character building. I didn't
quite feel for the characters and I had a hard time keeping them
apart from each other. That's a shame because with well written
characters this would've been a really good apocalyptic young adult
novel. But I still think that you should give this a go if you like
the genre! I give Dark inside 3,5/5 stars.

This post was written by regular reviewer Niina, get to know her here.